


The Season of the Spirits

by counterheist



Series: cubicle gods [1]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Office, Gen, M/M, Office Christmas Party AU, Ties
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-27
Updated: 2016-12-27
Packaged: 2018-09-12 18:17:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9083974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/counterheist/pseuds/counterheist
Summary: Yuuri wakes up to one hell of a headache, a tie he doesn’t recognize knotted around his wrist, and two fistfuls of banknotes cradled to his chest.
  An AU about cubicles, and the people who work in them.





	

Yuuri wakes up to one hell of a headache, a tie he doesn’t recognize knotted around his wrist, and two fistfuls of banknotes cradled to his chest.

The potted plant next to him blocks most of the sunlight from the wall of windows to his right. It’s quiet, if he ignores the technicolor pulsing between his ears.

He goes back to sleep.

When he wakes up again – wakes up and somehow manages to stay up – his phone has twenty-seven missed messages from Phichit. Most of them are running commentary, as per usual, but some of them are questions about what Yuuri’s doing and whether he’s having fun at his party. _wish i could b there (_ _๑_ _•_ _̥̥̥_ _́_ _ω•_ _̀_ _๑_ _) stupid oceans xxo_. Yuuri answers as best as he can while he collects himself in the restroom next to the main elevator bank. _I don’t know. I think I drank too much._ He slaps cold water onto his cheeks, and stares at his reflection. The face he sees is tired, and pale, and smudged, because his glasses are dirty and he doesn’t have the energy to clean them.

“I shouldn’t drink so much,” he tells the mirror. “Not in the corner like that.”

He tries for a stern look, and the mirror complies – even looks regretful too – but it doesn’t make him feel any better.

His phone buzzes. _im sorry poor vicchan he was 2 pur_ , Phichit has sent back at lightning speed. It’s not everything, but it works to put a small smile on Yuuri’s face much better than any of Yuuri’s own efforts had.

Now that one of his problems is partially taken care of, Yuuri looks to the other two.

The money and the tie.

The money and the tie go into the pockets of his coat, to be handled at another time when his first problem is fully taken care of. He wraps his scarf as tightly around his neck as he can stand, and turns off the lights in the restroom before he goes. Yuuri thinks he hears an echo when the door shuts behind him, but it’s probably only his imagination. It doesn’t seem like anyone else is on his floor this morning. This is something he’s grateful for, but suspicious of: the office lights might be dark, and the cubicles quiet, but he’s spent more Saturday mornings here than he can really count – catching up, always catching up – and he’s never been alone when he has.

It dawns on him, as he taps his temples in the elevator and avoids looking at himself in the shiny steel doors, that maybe he’s still a little lucky. Maybe he got all the way up to the fifteenth floor from the party in the lobby last night without anyone noticing. Maybe he’ll be able to get all the way down from the fifteenth floor to the street now.

Maybe not.

The two members of the cleaning staff in the lobby give him a Look as he tries to sneak past the security desk. He pulls his scarf up above his nose, even though his face is already burning. One of them says, “Isn’t that—?” and Yuuri doesn’t stick around to hear the rest.

* * *

On the train ride back to his apartment he considers the facts as he knows them: he woke up this morning half underneath his desk, which means he didn’t go home last night after the company Christmas party, which means there were – he checks his phone – almost _twelve hours_ for him to embarrass himself in front of the entire Fukuoka branch of ICECO.

The plan had been to have one glass of wine, say hello to his boss, and leave at eight. Clearly, none of those things happened. Or. Sixteen of the first thing happened, and then he went up to cry alone on his floor and passed out under his desk.

His only saving grace, he thinks as he stares out the opposite window, is that his headache is disappearing quickly and his boss hasn't yet texted to tell him that he’s fired. Yuuri can pack for his New Year’s trip home to Hasetsu without having to worry about finding a new job at the same time. So that's good.

Everything’s good.

All he has to cry about is his dead dog, and he gets a head start on that before he even leaves the train.

Yuuri doesn't think about the two problems in his pockets again until he’s getting ready for work on Monday morning, and the tie slips out onto the floor of his kitchen. Yuuri almost trips over it in his mad dash to make his breakfast and eat it at the same time. In avoiding the tie, he trips over himself.

Once he’s joined the tie on the floor he considers it. It’s a nice tie. Yuuri doesn’t know very much about clothes, and even _he_ knows that the indigo silk in his hands is special. Also, it matches his glasses. It’s a very nice color. He likes it, he decides. And since he doesn’t know where he left his own tie, he resolves to try to find the owner – but perhaps not very hard. Sitting up, he carefully rolls the indigo tie around his hand, and sets it into his backpack for safekeeping.

Next he checks his other pocket.

In it he discovers enough money to pay for a very fancy dinner. He wonders where he got it; if he won it in a bet, or a raffle. He didn’t think there was going to be a raffle at the party. And he’s not normally the type to gamble. And then, of course, there’s all the extras. There are fifty euros mixed in with the yen, and five notes worth 100 of something he’s not familiar with. They have a snowboarder on the back. They’re pretty, once Yuuri gets to looking at them. There is no reason for the company to give him something so mismatched, but there's no reason for his coworkers to do so either. It’s a mystery, but before Yuuri can figure it out he realizes he’s going to be late for work. He leaves the money on his table.

* * *

The company doesn’t give them holiday leave on Christmas, but most of the expats take the time around it off anyway and the office is relatively subdued as a result. So it’s not a huge surprise when Celestino’s office door is closed when Yuuri finally makes it up to his floor. Still, Yuuri ducks his head and hurries along to his seat as fast as he can. He doesn’t need his boss to shame him to feel ashamed for making a mistake. He’s never needed anyone else for something as simple as that.

But before he can even take off his coat he sees eyes staring at him from over the cubicle wall.

“Katsuki! Good morning!”

It’s one of his juniors. Mi-something. Mi... Minami, yes, that's right. “Good morning, Minami,” Yuuri responds. His voice is muffled by his coat and scarf as he pulls them both off, but Minami doesn't seem to mind. Minami rarely minds anything Yuuri does, for reasons Yuuri will probably never understand.

“Cialdini sent out an email last night,” Minami says, “putting you in charge while he goes back to Italy.”

“He was supposed to leave on Wednesday, though,” Yuuri responds, mostly to himself.

“I don’t mind at all! So,” Minami chirps, “are you nervous, Boss?”

“Hm?”

Minami folds his arms over the dividing wall. He had better not be standing on his swivel chair, Yuuri thinks. It’s not safe. “You gave that big presentation summarizing all our projects to the groups from headquarters last week, didn’t you?”

Yuuri nods. It went terribly, no surprise there. His mind had been with Vicchan, and he’d tripped over his words fantastically. The best Yuuri can hope for is that the presentation that went after his was so amazing no one will ever remember how poorly he represented Fukuoka. Of course, the presentation that went after his was given by Viktor Nikiforov, who’s going to be the next chief of operations in Russia if all the company gossip Phichit likes to pass along is true, so Yuuri’s hopes are not totally unfounded.

“Wow,” Minami breathes. Yuuri turns away to boot up his computer. “The foreigners haven’t left yet, right? Aren’t you nervous they’ll ask you more questions?”

“No, no,” Yuuri says, “they won’t want to talk to me again any time soon.”

And that’s that.

Yuuri keeps his head down, and his teams follow his lead. None of them hear a word from the foreigners on the twentieth floor, and Yuuri aims to keep it that way. Every year a group of executives and VIPs from the highest levels of the company meet in December at a different branch around the world, for incredibly serious business reasons. This year the Fukuoka branch was selected. Yuuri thinks onsen and Hakuba have something to do with it, though it would have made more sense for the bigwigs to base themselves out of Tokyo or even Osaka if that were the case.

The further along the week gets without seeing anyone more senior than himself in the office, the more Yuuri starts to think all the executives must have already left for the mountain resorts. He can’t even imagine that kind of life; flying to Nagano in the middle of the week on a whim, probably rushing off to America before the day is even done. Or to St. Petersburg.

Yuuri, in contrast, tries to take each day at a time. This is true even when all he wants to do is rush home to the onsen and cry until he’s all dried up. He skypes with Phichit when he can, and calls his family, and he tries to stay out of the way. Before he knows it it’s already Wednesday, and there are only hours to go before he’ll be eating his mother’s katsudon in Hasetsu.

Minami appears at the entryway to his cubicle at around 2pm. “Katsuki, a few of us are going out for drinks with the aides from Russia and Canada. Would you like to join? I know it's Christmas Eve, and you must already have plans but…”

Yuuri never has Christmas Eve plans. Which is to say, Yuuri’s Christmas Eve plans usually involve watching American holiday movies with Phichit. He’s never had a date for Christmas Eve, not even in a large group of couples, not even when he went to university in America. There was that one time in high school, with Yuuko and Takeshi, but he was so painfully an unwanted third wheel he doesn't like to recall it. Besides, Yuuri is going back to Hasetsu early this year, and he has a train to catch.

That Viktor Nikiforov might possibly be going out with the group doesn't change anything. In fact, it’s better Yuuri doesn’t put himself in a position where he could embarrass himself around Viktor any more than he already did with his presentation. He doesn’t think he could handle it if he did something like that. So he declines, politely, and that is that.

That is that when Yuuri goes back to Hasetsu.

That is that when Viktor’s group goes back to Russia.

That is that for almost an entire year.

But that changes the next December when Yuuri steps out of a stall in the restroom by the main elevator bank on the fifteenth floor, and sees the back of Viktor Nikiforov’s head at one of the urinals. It’s not his fault he trips. It is entirely Viktor’s fault that he turns around before zipping back up.

“Are you all right?” Viktor asks. His Japanese is shaky, and heavily accented, but most of the foreign employees don’t even bother, so Yuuri is still impressed. Also, Yuuri is still on the floor of the men’s room, and Viktor still hasn’t zipped up his slacks.

“I. You…,” Yuuri tries to keep his eyes on anything but Viktor, he tries so hard, “Pants?”

“Hm? Oh, yes,” Viktor says. He pats himself back into place and pulls his zipper up; Yuuri doesn’t even pretend not to watch. “Thank you.”

“Yes,” Yuuri says, before scrambling up and running away to hide somewhere. Anywhere. His cubicle is too close, and too open by far, so he takes a sharp corner and jumps down two flights of stairs to an empty conference room on Phichit’s floor.

* * *

Fukuoka, it seems, has been chosen for the end-of-year conference twice in a row.

“That means something,” Phichit insists. They’re sitting underneath the conference room table because Yuuri’s legs gave out and Phichit followed him under. “I heard from Guang Hong that Leo heard from his boss that the VIPs are only here because Viktor pulled some strings because he _wanted_ it to be here. And he didn’t go north with the rest of them.”

“Maybe he likes the Kyushu onsen instead,” Yuuri tries.

“Maybe he likes _your_ onsen instead.”

Yuuri rubs at his temples. “He’s never been there, and you know that.”

Phichit sighs, and takes a picture of the underside of the conference table. “Are you sure you don’t want to know what happened last year? I know I was in Detroit, but I can find out for you. He might not have been there; this might really all be a coincidence. Don’t you want to know?”

When Yuuri got back from Hasetsu in January, everyone looked at him differently. From the mail clerks, to the CFO, to the owner of the bar down the street. They laughed, they gave him pats on the back and high fives, and other gestures from their home countries that had no meaning at all to Yuuri. Something had to have happened to suddenly make Yuuri the center of their attention, and there is only one night before the new year that Yuuri doesn’t remember. But Yuuri doesn’t want to know.

* * *

Viktor Nikiforov introduces himself to the Marketing department on a Wednesday, two days before Christmas. “Please take care of me,” he says in his stilted Japanese. His eyes meet Yuuri’s, until Yuuri looks pointedly at the copier behind him. A top of the line Fuji Xerox, Celestino bought it in April after Minami was almost eaten by the old one. It’s very blocky, but the blue accents are pleasing to the eye. Yuuri has a tie with a similar color. His mother bought it for him the same day she bought the tie he lost last December.

“Yuuri?”

The crowd has thinned as people have gone back to work, and now it’s just Viktor, Celestino, and Yuuri standing in the hallway. “Ah! I’m sorry, yes?”

“I’m taking Viktor to lunch, but afterwards I’m heading to the airport. Can you get him settled?” Can Yuuri get Viktor what now, exactly? “Wonderful. Merry Christmas, Yuuri.”

Yuuri doesn’t understand, but Celestino walks as he talks, and he and Viktor are already in the elevator. “Merry Christmas,” Yuuri returns, rote. “I. Yes, of course I can. I’ll take care of you,” he directs at Viktor Nikiforov before the doors close between them.

After the doors close between them he wanders back to his cubicle, and re-evaluates his life up to this point. He’s helped out at Yu-topia Akatsuki since he was little. He graduated with respectable grades from a good school. He donates to charity. He once ran into a light pole when he forgot to put his glasses on before leaving for work. He did something at the last Christmas party that led Giacometti in Finance to call him “Table Master Yuuri” ever since. And now, he’s guiding the Russian branch’s golden son through Fukuoka for reasons Celestino might have explained but definitely didn’t stick.

He thinks about texting the ballet instructor he had as a teenager. _Was I ever a bad student, Miss Minako?_

She would probably tell him to _get it, Yuuri, I taught you better than this_.

This is going to be a day for sighs. Yuuri can tell.

Before he can indulge in another one, he hears a bag drop to his right. “Are we going to be sharing?” Viktor Nikiforov asks in English. He’s standing in the middle of the entryway to Yuuri’s cluttered cubicle, and unless Yuuri wants to jump over or run through a carpeted wall he has nowhere to go. Yuuri can’t help but suspect it was a planned maneuver. “This is a very cute little working space, Yuuri, but I don’t think it can manage two desks. We’ll have to sit _very_ close.” Viktor takes a seat on said desk.

Yuuri’s heart skips a beat.

“No, no, I’m sure there’s an office, Mr. Nikiforov-”

“Viktor.” At Yuuri’s stare – did he know Yuuri’s been calling him that in his head the entire time? – Viktor frowns, and places his fashionable shoulder bag on the desk between them. “Mr. Nikiforov sounds so old, don’t you think? And it isn’t like I’m your superior, to be called so formally. In fact, you don’t even call your _actual_ superior by his last name! I’m hurt, Yuuri, really.” He says something very fast in Russian, switches to Japanese – “Call me Viktor!” – and then, back to English, “If I truly can’t sit with you, at least tell me I’m going to be nearby.”

Somehow they make it to an empty office at the end of the hall with a minimum of blushing, stuttering, and embarrassment on Yuuri’s part. Viktor continues to say things that would be very embarrassing to Yuuri, but he doesn’t appear to mind at all. Yuuri has so many things to text to Phichit after this conversation, he barely knows where to begin. As he settles on _ive died bury me_ Viktor grabs his hand.

“Thank you for bringing me to my new home,” Viktor says. “I’m sure working with the art department in Fukuoka will be wonderful.”

“You’re welcome,” Yuuri says, and finds he means it. Viktor might be confusing, but he’s very likeable. And his drawings are beautiful, though Yuuri hasn’t seen any new ones in years, not since Viktor was put on the management track in St. Petersburg, and Viktor must never know Yuuri knows any of this. Second text: _actually kill me_. “And, ah, Merry Christmas.”

Viktor smiles. “Of course, of course. I hear Christmas is a time for lovers in Japan. Especially Christmas Eve.”

Yuuri nods because he doesn’t trust himself to speak words that are real.

“Are you busy tomorrow, Yuuri?”

“I am,” Yuuri responds without much thought. He and Phichit can have a movie night in person this year, and he’s been looking forward to it. “But only in the evening.”

“Not during the day?”

Some of the light displays in the park outside the window have already been turned on, although it’s only the middle of the afternoon. Half of Yuuri thinks it’s wasteful. The other half is jealous of the view. “I have to work during the day,” he says like it’s obvious, then flinches. “Ah, that’s because it’s not a proper holiday here in Japan,” he rushes to clarify, “Did HR not give you an absence calendar?” Crispino is usually much more thorough than that.

“They did,” Viktor’s still holding his hand, and Yuuri’s still waiting for him to shake it, “Are you free at all between work and the evening?”

They make dinner plans for a ramen restaurant Viktor says he read about in a magazine. There are so many things Yuuri wants to ask, but doesn’t know how.

As he steps back to leave – third text: _buy me a glove i am never washing this hand_ _again_ – Viktor pulls him back, nose a little red. “You know, I’ve been wanting to say… I like your tie.”

Yuuri looks down, like a child. He’s wearing the pretty indigo tie he’d woken up to find on his wrist last year. No one had ever claimed it. “Ah, thank you. I. Found it.” And Celestino said yesterday to dress nicely today, because they were going to be welcoming someone new.

“It suits you.”

Are they really talking about ties? Yuuri doesn’t know the language of ties. “I like,” he searches around the mostly-empty room for something to comment on, something other than Viktor’s eyes, or his work, or the way he’s still holding Yuuri’s hand, something safe, settles on, “your luggage tag. It reminds me of the tie my mother gave me for university graduation.”

Viktor coughs. “Yes,” he cycles through the languages Yuuri’s heard from him so far, says ‘yes’ in each, adds French. “It’s something I found too.”

**Author's Note:**

> I have many thoughts about the adventures of salaryman Yuuri Katsuki, and most of them didn't make it into this. Also yes, yes they _have_ been tie married for a year. So rude of Yuuri to forget their anniversary.


End file.
